


a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation

by radiodurans



Category: Harry Styles (Musician), Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live RPF
Genre: Gen, Humor, In which Bowen Yang is an absolute king and Harry Styles is a sex pest, Lust, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Pining, Queer Themes, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26180176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radiodurans/pseuds/radiodurans
Summary: Bowen has long outgrown his desire to sleep with assholes, but he's not going to make it if Harry Styles is as nice as they say. He keeps falling (and falling, and falling) for Harry's breed of take-him-home-to-mother twink. The kind of boy your family hears about once before he jet-sets off to Milan or wherever to go do a residency at a tiger sanctuary.OrHarry Styles comes to SNL.
Relationships: Bowen Yang/Harry Styles, Bowen Yang/Julio Torres, Harry Styes/Xander Ritz
Comments: 15
Kudos: 47





	a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipwrecks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipwrecks/gifts).



> LOOK!!!! SOMEONE had to write this and I GUESS since everyone else is a COWARD I nominate MYSELF. Seriously though this is all in good fun and I hope everyone likes it. I don’t know why this is 4000 words long we’re just going with it okay.
> 
> Nobody send this to him but Bowen Yang if you ever Google your own name and find this I hope you love it. You’re an icon through and through. Harry Styles you’re a pest go away.

_Lights up and they know who you are. . .know who you are. . .do you know who you are?_

Bowen sighs and x-es out of the tab before he can watch _Lights Up_ again. As if to tease him, the next tab that’s open is _Sign of the Times_ . Close. _Harry Styles Trying Desperately to be Pregnant._ Close. _Medicine - Live in St. Paul_. Close. _Does Harry Styles have a girlfriend?_ Close. _Is Harry Styles gay?_ Close. As each tab disappears, he realizes it’s grown dark in his office. _God,_ he’s got to get this thirst under control before Harry arrives and he embarrasses himself by fainting dead away. Nobody needs to see that, least of all some alien sex rocker with baby cow eyes.

It’s been three weeks since Lorne announced Harry’s plans to host and eighteen days since he fell in love. He feels like the fourteen year old girls he’s seen hugging Harry in his embarrassing backlog of Harry Styles videos on YouTube. Shameful amounts of time have been dedicated to Googling variants of _Harry Styles gay_ and assessing the evidence he’s already seen.

 _Sang a song about sucking dick. . . rumored relationships. . .doesn't like labels. . .that new video. . .and the way he_ **_dresses_** _, just - surely - but -_

At this point, he’s not sure if he’s seeking evidence for or against. Certainly it would be handy for the work environment if Harry turned out to be sexually off the table. Then, he sees a rumble on Gay Twitter about Harry randomly being spotted in Pennsylvania with _some guy_ and he thinks - _goddammit_. 

So, okay, that-special-something-about-Harry has become a bit of an obsession. It’s not a _problem_ he doesn’t have a _problem_ but it’s become obvious enough that his cast mates tease him about it at least once a day. Kate, of course, is among the worst, asking, _So how's Harry?_ with her tongue between her teeth as she perches upon the arm of his couch. _How's Kristen?_ as a retort has had diminishing returns the longer his. . .fixation has gone on.

Before they ever meet, Bowen decides he's not going to fuck Harry Styles.

*

The day of Harry's arrival, Bowen paces endlessly in his office. He doesn't really _believe_ in God - because, ugh, what is he, straight? - but he finds himself praying for something he's never wanted before.

 _Please God or the universe or Krishna or whoever, let Harry Styles be terrible to work with._ _Like, an absolute monster, I'm begging you._

Bowen has long outgrown his desire to sleep with assholes, but he's not going to make it if Harry Styles is as nice as they say. He keeps falling (and falling, and _falling_ ) for Harry's breed of take-him-home-to-mother twink. The kind of boy your family hears about once before he jet-sets off to Milan or wherever to go do a residency at a tiger sanctuary.

At five o’clock, someone raps on his door. Without waiting for an invitation, Kate bursts into the room, wild-eyed with her hair up in a messy ponytail. 

“He’s here,” she says, grabbing Bowen by the wrist. Bowen moans, allowing himself to go limp with the drama of it all. 

“I don’t want him to see me. I look like a sweaty chicken nugget today,” he says. Kate tugs him along even harder.

“Funny. That’s what I said when you shoved me in front of Kristen Stewart unshowered last week,” she says.

“I didn’t know you were unshowered,” lies Bowen. Kate lets go of his wrist and scoops his elbow into her own. It’s not friendliness; they’re close to Harry’s room for the week and she wants to be able to whisper in his ear. Sometimes he feels like the #SNLGays are just a group of manic orphan siblings who got lost at 30 Rock and tried to blend in with the fauna they found.

“Payback’s a biiiiitch,” she says in a sing-song voice. Then, she pushes him into the room and books it out of there. Harry is alone and reading a script, because this wouldn’t be any fun for Kate if Bowen met the light of his life in a big group of people. Harry gives him a knee-melting smile, sits up, and puts the script down on the coffee table.

“Bowen?” he says which - okay, is a curveball until he realizes that Kate might have told him that Bowen was coming. The other thought - that Harry might have been appreciating his work on the show from afar - is far too overwhelming for his gay smooth-brain at the moment.

“Hi, Harry,” he says, holding his hand out to shake. Harry grabs his hand, stands up, and pulls him in for a surprising hug with one-two-three dude-claps on the back. When he pulls away, he pats Bowen’s shoulder as though they’ve known each other for years.

“Just H. I love your work so much, man,” he says.

So it _is_ going to be like that then. _Christ_.

“Thanks so much, man. I, uh, really love what I do so I love when other people. . .love it,” he says.

 _H_ rubs the back of his neck, suddenly looking a little shy. Bowen can still feel H’s hands at his back. He wonders if the shyness H is feeling has anything to do with the way their chests pressed together, the cousin of a kiss, and then reminds himself he’s not a poet so that he doesn’t waste any more mental energy coming up with metaphors about a hug with Harry-fucking-Styles. It is possible to be gay and professional at the same time - at least, in theory.

“Really excited to host this week,” says H. “I think it’s gonna be a great show.”

Bowen can’t help but giggle at his optimism. He feels a little woozy after just three seconds alone with H. Then again, it could just be all the tums he’s been eating out of anxiety. _God_ knows what’s in bodega antacids.

“Save that energy for Saturday. By Thursday you’re not even going to believe it’s a show.”

*

He’s having trouble thinking while H is around, which is how he makes the mistake of allowing him to root through some of Bowen’s old sketches before Bowen even _thinks_ about writing more. H’s legs are crossed like a Disney princess on Bowen’s hand-me-down, mouse-eaten, possibly-colonized-by-cockroaches couch. He wonders if this is what it felt like for John when Mick Jagger came to visit before remembering (again) that John is straight and has never had his heart fall out of his chest over a beautiful boy. Straight people never experience celebrity interactions in a monkey’s-paw sort of way. 

_Fuck them_ , Bowen thinks, as H rolls his dangling ankle back and forth.

Just when Bowen is about to pitch actually writing something, H turns the page of the sketch binder and _loses his shit_. His deep voice rumbles with laughter and he caves in on himself, apparently unable to keep reading with how funny he finds - well, whatever it is.

“Oh my god,” he says, wiping a tear away from his eye. “We _have_ to do the Sara Lee one. With the, um -“ he cracks up again before continuing. “With the Instagram. It’s very - I think the term I’ve been seeing online lately is _a mood_?”

Bowen’s face grows hot. He _remembers_ that shitpost of a sketch. Julio said when they wrote it at 3AM - “It’s okay to make it raunchy. This will never make it to air.” Maybe he was on a poppers high. Maybe they both were. It doesn’t matter because _Harry Styles likes it now_ which means _he probably has been on a popper’s high too_.

He would lie down if H wasn’t occupying most of his couch. Maybe he could just do it anyway, put his head in H’s lap, roll his body around so his face is right against -

 _No._ Bowen has _dignity, dammit_. He didn’t move to NYC from Aurora, CO. just to thirst after boys who had no intent on staying here. This is a Strictly Business Experience and he is going to treat it as such.

“Sure. I’ll pitch it to Lorne and see what he thinks,” says Bowen.

*

It’s too bad that he values his friendship with Julio so much, because every time they FaceTime each other, Bowen falls in love with him a little bit more. 

"Oh, you have an international superstar loving your sketch and falling all over you?" Julio whines in mock-sympathy. "Baby, I'm so sorry."

“Technically it’s your sketch too,” says Bowen. In the corner of his screen, he can see how sheepish he looks. Julio pulls a hotel blanket over his head like a hood and curls his arm around his knees. It’s late for both of them but he couldn’t keep this from Julio.

“I am not opposed to Harry, or, H?” He tilts his head curiously; Bowen shrugs. 

“He said H.”

Julio nods, then presses one of his eyes right up to the camera so that all Bowen can see is white.

“I am not opposed to him performing our sketch. His sense of humor must be very evolved, to have liked it so much,” says Julio.

“His everything is very evolved,” says Bowen, putting his eye to the camera as well. “I’m not sure he’s even human.”

“Dehumanizing him to cope with your desire? Bowen, you promised me you’d never become a Republican,” says Julio. They both pull their eyes away from the camera. Julio smushes his cheek in his own palm and smiles.

Bowen lets out a long sigh.

“Will you be in town this weekend?” he says. Julio nods.

“I have a couple more days here in Chicago but I will be there,” he says. Then, he bites his lip, thinking. “One request about the sketch before I arrive.”

“Sure. Anything,” says Bowen. Julio grins mischievously.

“Use one of my old Grindr photos for the line where they make fun of the fashion twink. I think it’s what America needs right now,” says Julio.

*

H is pacing in his office, reading off his lines in different tones. He’s taken to camping out here rather than in his own room. The constant heart attack this is inducing in Bowen is offset by the very expensive snacks and drinks that H keeps getting delivered here. Bowen can’t tell if H is trying to woo him or if he’s already decided they’re together without consulting Bowen about it first.

“I’m going to entrust you with some secret information,” says H as he flops down on the couch. It wheezes unhappily under his body.

Bowen taps his pencil against the table. He’s pretty sure gay twitter has given him the Right Intel on what this secret information might be, but it is a bit of a thrill to have it confirmed.

“Secret’s safe with me,” says Bowen. H nods.

“So my, uh, part-time boyfriend, Xander, is coming to the show on Saturday. He’s really excited to see it,” says H. He skates his fingers shyly across the floor, a little grin dancing on his lips.

“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” lies Bowen. He tap, tap, taps his pen against his keyboard to stack a layer of casual on top of his curiosity.

“Part-time boyfriend,” corrects H. “We aren’t exclusive.”

He drops the open script on his own face. Bowen chews on the end of his pen.

“Do you want to be?”

H noses into the folded center of the script before pulling it down to expose his eyes.

“I did, once. But we decided a long time ago that it was better to be, ah, free agents instead.”

He gives Bowen a _look_ that sits somewhere between sultry and anxious. It takes Bowen a second to realize that his restraint in dealing with H’s sexiness must have made H believe that Bowen has not noticed how queer he is. Though he’d love to counter this anxiety by taking H apart in his mouth, he settles for a more sensible option.

“You’re in for a treat. The long-term dating scene in this city is _atrocious_ but there are few places better for random earth-shattering Grindr hookups than New York,” he says.

H pulls at some loose strings on the couch, looking forlorn.

“Ok. I’ll keep that in mind,” he says. 

*

The way H eats is going to drive him _fucking insane_. He doesn’t know who gave him the right to eat everything tongue first but they should revoke it immediately for crimes against decency. H is an absolute menace with his tongue and he _knows it_ , deep-throating half a banana while he looks _directly_ in Bowen’s eyes. If Bowen didn’t like it so much, he’d label H an outright sex pest. As it is, he spends most of his days trying to not think about replacing a strawberry resting on H’s tongue with his own fingers, or his cock. 

Unfortunately, H doesn’t make it easy to ignore the sexual nature of the fruit-eating. By Thursday, he’s pairing his tongue-on-fruit action with obscene stories from a time in his life he labels _my London partying years_. Apparently, squeaky clean Harry Edward Styles of One Direction fame spent most of his non-touring dates between 2012 and 2014 in some sort of fashionable fuckfest, an untamed land of party drugs where the only barrier to doing them were the words “no, thank you.”

“I almost never did,” he reassures Bowen. Then, he presses a bright berry to his tongue as though it’s a tablet of Molly before chewing and swallowing. With a grin, he finishes - “or did I?”

The don’t-ask-don’t-tell of it all is what’s kept up Bowen’s resolve. It seems as though H intends to do everything he can to seduce him _without_ just asking him out on a date - or for a quick and dirty fuck. H will litter his DMs with hearts and winky faces and kisses and sparkles but he won’t say ‘I like you’ like a normal human being. His unexamined hotness privilege is preventing him from doing the one thing that might make Bowen say yes. Once Bowen realizes this, he finds a certain delight in not giving H what he wants.

Admittedly, the delight is mostly sexual. 

*

Saturday morning sends H into a state. When he’s not practicing, he’s pacing endlessly, trapped inside his own brain. Bowen feels a little bad for ghosting by 10 AM but he can’t take that anxiety on. Besides, in a few hours H will be caught up in filming the pre-taped sketches and he won’t have time to be nervous. This leaves plenty of hours open for Bowen’s personal life e.g. Julio’s victorious arrival back to New York City. He slinks into Bowen’s office around 11 with a shawl around his shoulders and goodies from the Chicago airport in tow.

“You look like a mess,” he says sympathetically, sitting down on Bowen’s couch. He takes a bag of vegan candy out of his backpack and tosses some chocolate on the desk. Bowen picks a small candy bar packaged in gold foil and plays with the wrapper.

“I _am_ a mess,” he says. Julio pops a vegan chocolate kiss in his mouth and chews, chews, chews.

“You’re in a messy situation. Whether you’re a mess existentially. . .I don’t think so,” says Julio. He crosses his legs and shifts around on the couch with a curious look on his face. “This corner of the room smells nice. What happened?”

“He was sitting there all week. I think his skin just. . .smells like that,” says Bowen.

Julio nods, frowning slightly.

“I think _I_ want to sleep with him. Just like, off of smell alone,” he says.

Bowen pops the chocolate in his mouth, centering himself on the crunch of the peanuts inside.

“Yeah, you and everyone else,” he says. “Even Kate. Even _Sam_.”

Julio’s eyebrows raise in disbelief.

“Even _Sam?_ She’s like. . .the lesbianist lesbian who has ever lesbianed.” 

Bowen shakes his head and throws the gold wrapper in the trash.

“She says she’s never met another man who served fish like him before,” he says.

Julio sighs, processing the gravity of the situation. _God_ , Bowen has missed him so much. The little wrinkle between his eyebrows when he’s lost in thought, and how carefully he chooses every word that comes out of his mouth. Julio is a poet in another life rather than a professional shitposter, no doubt.

“You _can’t_ sleep with him, but I think you’re going to have to kiss him,” says Julio. 

“Ugh,” says Bowen, tugging at his own hair. “I hate that. I do, don’t I?”

“Not for yourself,” says Julio. He tosses another chocolate kiss into the air, catches it in his mouth, and gives Bowen a pointed look as it melts on his tongue.

“For all of us,” says Bowen. Julio gives him a thumbs up that makes Bowen want to sink into the floor.

*

H barrels into his office an hour before the show. He’s fully made up in a suit that probably costs more than Bowen’s studio apartment and the light inside his eyes has gone out. Bowen doesn’t ask any questions because he’s been there on a Saturday night too. He rifles around in the minifridge and hands H a bottle of water.

“Don’t usually provide white boys with free therapy but - do you want to talk about it?” he says. H takes the water from him and gulps down half of the bottle. He caps it with one fluid movement and places it between his legs.

“No. It’s fine. I’ll get through,” says H. “It’s just like - always so fucking hard being on live TV. People gif it, they turn me into, like, these little moving pictures that just exist, forever, of me playing with my headset or adjusting my shirt.” He takes another long drink, and crumples the bottle in his huge hand. “Sorry. I don’t mean to explain your own job to you. I’m sure you know how it is.”

Bowen nods, not quite believing that this is _his life_. A whole room alone with a famous person who respects his work enough that he just _assumes_ he’s been giffed a thousand times. He makes a mental note to check online and see if he’s ever been giffed even once.

“Yeah, I know how it is,” Bowen says, faux-casual. 

“A lot of my friends are coming to both the dress and the real performance. I’m worried to embarrass myself. To embarrass _them_ ,” says H, rubbing his hands over his thighs. He tosses the water bottle into the trash, leans back, and sighs. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. It’s fine.”

Bowen gets up from his desk and sits down next to H. He surprises both of them by lacing his fingers in H’s huge, soft hand. The subsequent sharp gasp sends shivers down Bowen’s spine.

“I’m going to tell you what Kate McKinnon told me when I got scared for the first time,” says Bowen. “She said to me - _nobody cares. Your family and friends will still love you, your fans will still go nuts for you, and your haters will still hate you. The sun will rise on Sunday and you will still be the same loser you were on Friday._ Then, she socked me on the shoulder, but I’ll save you that kindness.”

H squeezes his hand at the reassurance. Then, he turns their hands so that his painted nails are visible. His fingers press harder into the indents of Bowen’s knuckles, blooming red at his cuticles.

“Never have been -“ He clears his throat, sounding hoarse. “Never have had anyone see _this_ on TV before.”

 _This_ Bowen understands. The ugly comments on twitter for _weeks_ after his first performance on the show still cause his skin to crawl.

“Some people are going to hate it,” he says, leaning his head on H’s shoulder. “But fuck them, right?”

H huffs out a little laugh.

“Yeah,” he says. Then, he turns his head to look into Bowen’s eyes with a little hooded gaze. He smiles, cheeks dimpling beautifully.

When Bowen kisses him he thinks - _for all of us._

*

In years to come, Bowen will flex that he got Harry Styles disheveled but went no further and gave no other promises. He will say, dramatically, _yes, at 11PM I reminded him that it was time for us to get to our places, chop chop, because my true love has always been live television and I needed him to respect that_. Bowen will stick his chin up, give a haughty smile, and pretend that their dress rehearsal goodbye was dignified.

This is not what happens at 11PM at all. H buries his face in Bowen’s office trash can, vomiting up his nerves in the exact same way Bowen had his first night on SNL. It is both extremely unsexy and incredibly endearing.

“I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” he moans, as though Bowen is not already seeing him like this. Bowen rubs his back and shoots off text messages to both hair and makeup and the janitor. He also makes a mental note to never allow Hot Boys In Need into his office or his life ever again. _Much_ more trouble than they’re worth.

“You’ll make it through,” says Bowen, standing up. H grabs onto his pant leg, white-knuckled, and tilts his face out of the trash can.

“Where are you going?” he asks. Bowen shakes his ankle until H lets go.

“H,” he says with the greatest patience he can muster. “I have to go put on a show.”

*

Julio runs up to him, bright-eyed, after their sketch finally goes to air. He hugs Bowen tightly - a rarity for someone as reserved as he is. Bowen hugs him back, his heart fluttering in his chest. He holds him a little too long to not make an excuse out of doing it.

“I kissed him,” he murmurs in Julio’s ear. Julio pulls away and covers his mouth with his hands in delight.

“No way,” he says. “Did you go any further?”

Bowen bites his lip and shakes his head. 

“No. But I did comfort his stage fright,” he says. Julio giggles into his hands before pulling Bowen into another hug.

“Sweetie, as long as you weren’t inside him it doesn’t matter,” he says.

*

After, H invites him out with a big group of people. He _does_ consider it. . .until he sees the guy who must be H’s “part-time boyfriend” looking at H like he’s hung the moon. Bowen’s been _there_ too many times and wants no part of _that_. So, he passes on the extravaganza, to H’s slight dismay.

“But I’ll see you again? Like, the next time I’m in New York? ” H says. Bowen, realizing this is his chance at a movie star goodbye, grabs onto the opportunity for drama.

“Sure,” he whispers in H’s ear. “If you come back to Saturday Night Live.”

Then, he kisses H on the cheek and walks away without looking back. Truthfully, it hurts, but in a star-crossed way that he doesn’t get to experience very often. He imagines himself as Ennis from Brokeback Mountain except, like, Asian and a more realistic top.

Three days later, he finds a floral arrangement on his doorstep with a card attached.

_Thanks for everything. Here’s my number. H._

He keeps the card on his kitchen table but doesn’t put the number in his phone.


End file.
